Backdoor Pharmacist Does Liver Magic and So Can You!

Alcohol, alcohol, you burn my lips so. Alcohol, alcohol, you knock me down so. Alcohol or more precisely, ethanol, is probably the oldest psychoactive drug we consume. Even elephants and monkeys love it, so we’re in good company. It’s implicated in a ton of horrible shit — neurotoxic, hepatotoxic, the list goes on. However, I want to talk about one unique interaction with another substance.

Ethanol does a lot in our brains, but the primary action that we’re concerned about is positive modulation of GABA. GABA or γ-Aminobutyric acid is one of several neurotransmitters in our body. The laundry list of actions it controls should sound familiar to anyone who’s had a drink: anxiety, nausea, hunger, controlling muscle tone, and generally depresses our nervous system. The action at GABA to relax us. Seems like a great accompaniment to anything stimulating.

Cocaine for instance. The lines I’ve done are going out in the company of expensive cocktails, financier cocks, and their Long Island tails or staying in brown bagging cheap beers in Bushwick where I get a wider gamut of skin colors to look at. The problem is that on its own cocaine has such a short half life. It can be quite harsh as well. You need something to take the edge off.

We just talked about such a magical substance, ethanol. Your liver performs arcane thaumaturgy when you drink and do coke. When the indifferent ethanol and cocaine chemicals stew in our body, it slams them together. This is a sure sign that if there is a God, he’s incompetent. You synthesize an exotic stimulant in vivo called cocaethylene. Thanks a lot, transesterification.

Cocaethylene is structurally similar to cocaine, and produces many of the same effects. They’re both TRIs, triple-reuptake inhibitors, or SNDRIs, serotonin-norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors. The news blabs about dopamine, but we can’t forget the joys of serotonin and norepinephrine. Serotonin you hear all about in Prozac and MDMA in improving mood. Norepinephrine or noradrenaline however doesn’t get enough love. Dopamine helps us attach attention, norepinephrine gives us energy and the ability to sustain the concentration that dopamine gives us.

There’s no hard crash. No aching of your synapses that screams for more cocaine. You can actually last on just a line or two. It’s almost like MDPV, less overt stimulation and euphoria. You want to talk all night, you can still drink a few more, but you can keep your head on straight. The slow decline of cocaethylene in your system lets you down easy. When 5am rolls around, you’ll be awake enough to get home, but tired enough that you can sleep in until 4pm, where you can start the cycle all over again.

Cocaethylene has a greater preference for dopamine than the other two unlike cocaine. It has a longer half life than cocaine, meaning it will stay longer. It’s in vivo synthesis means that as the night goes on, your body produces a stream of cocaethylene, a natural extended release dopamine drop kick.

But just because your body doesn’t want more cocaine, doesn’t mean you don’t. There you are, stumbling to the stall again. There you are staggering to the stall, nose twitching, rolled up $20 in your hand, feeling sorry for yourself, and you should.

Another catch is that cocaethylene is even more cardiotoxic than cocaine. Cocaine already is associated with an increase in heart attacks and strokes, and cocaethylene is even better at it. Everything comes at a price.